How to get out of Minimum Wage jobs

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Life should be all about following your passion. You should always strive to do something you enjoy, and at the same time make money out of it. If you don’t have a specific passion you want to go after, educate yourself in something that is sure to earn you good money. It may take time, but don’t let that daunt you. It pays off at the end. In the mean time, the reality is you also have bills to pay. Therefore, you find yourself struggling to get by on a minimum wage job, continuously dissatisfied and unhappy. If you have been stuck in the same minimum wage job for a while and you feel like there is no escape, this article is for you. Mohammed N. Mohammed is a Solution Architect and Co-founder at Soft Interactive Systems. Below is his list of advises on how to break free at a fairly short period of time.

1. Trainings: There are lots of institutes that provide short term trainings in various fields. Information makes all the difference. You should get all the information you need from these institutes, which give result oriented training, mostly lasting one to three months. The question is, what kind of training is right for you? You can start from the type of professional job you would like to get into. Everyone has different backgrounds and interests, so you can start your search depending on your own inclination. There are also a lot of internet resources like bureau of labor statistics www.bls.gov that let you know which specific field is really in demand and pays more money. Below is a list of fields that you can look into.

o Online Trainings: Online trainings with subscriptions should be amazingly helpful. Since I am an IT professional, the resources I list could be mostly IT related; only because that is a subject I know well. Nevertheless, there are a lot of resources for each and every profession as well. Below is a list of my favorite websites that provide online training videos in IT that you can take at your own pace and finish in a short period of time. The first three are free; the other four require a monthly subscription fee.

o Online job boards: These are online job boards that let you upload your resume so that employers can find you easily. Make sure you modify and refine your resume every day so that the search engine knows that you are actively looking for a job. In addition to job boards, check out county websites. Departments of Human Resources in the counties you live in provide a lot of government jobs, and they do not use these job sites; they use their own site.

Additionally, use http://www.grovo.com/ and http://noexcuselist.com/ to learn about a range of different subjects. Another useful site is the social media twitter; you can follow industry experts to see what they are up to and update yourself on new happenings at your favorite company.

3. Online Presence: I could combine this with online resources, but I just wanted to emphasize that you need to build your profile very neatly and avoid unnecessary/unprofessional representation of yourself.

4. Certification Exam: Although not required, it is beneficial to have certification on any of the professions you would like to apply to. Once you have finished getting the required knowledge on your chosen profession, explore the web to get practice exams. The link I personally like is http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/the-10-best-it-certification-web-sites/ ; it provides information about practice exams on most IT subjects. A lot of practice exams cost you about $$ – $$$ but if you are lucky you can get them from E-Bay or Amazon for about $5 – $10.

5. Communication Skill: You should be proactive. You do not have to be a fluent speaker to have a good communication skill; just be initiative, responsible, and set expectations. Always remember that satisfaction entirely depends on expectation.

6. Network: This is very crucial to have. Build you profile on www.linkedin.com and start adding recruiters, then continue adding your friends with the same profession to expand your network.

7. Target Date: You need to have a target date. The best time to start is today! Start at the beginning of this year and give six months of intensive effort. Start looking for a job during summer. If you tirelessly show effort everyday and explore your options, I can guarantee you can be successful.

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Author: Makeda Yasenlul

If you’re reading this thank you for allowing me to steal a few minutes of your day to introduce you to me- the eccentric author of this blog. My name is Makeda Yasenlul and I’m a 20 something (let your imagination run wild) year old immigrant living in Los Angeles, California. This site was birthed from the longing I had of my birthplace Ethiopia, so I utilize this medium to express said thoughts, ideas, and feelings to you my readers. I surely have no filter, so anything that strikes me as worthy of sharing I will do so without hesitation, you have been warned. My thoughts are just those, MY THOUGHTS. I will not sugarcoat or whitewash the content I post on here, because then I would be doing you a disservice by not giving you my honest opinion. I also encourage other people to contribute in the form of comments or even as fellow authors (after passing my rigorous test of course). Thank you again and Enjoy.
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